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NEW YORK - It has been six months since Donna Graziano packed a barbecue into her car, drove 15 miles from her Brooklyn home to Staten Island, and began cooking for residents of a neighborhood ravaged by Superstorm Sandy. Her one-woman effort in a seaside park expanded into an aid hub that has drawn donations of food, generators, clothes, diapers and household goods, and has become the go-to center for locals seeking advice on everything from emergency aid to mold removal. Now, the city's parks department says it is time for Graziano's Cedar Grove Community Hub to dismantle its five tents so that the park and nearby beach can welcome summer visitors and begin a major dune reinforcement project.

Mahalo nui loa ("thank you very much") for the Special Hawaii Issue [April 21]. Fabulous memories of several visits to the islands in paradise were made vivid by the stories, pictures and maps of Oahu, Molokai and the cruise with stops at the Big Island, Kauai and Maui. One bit of cautionary advice: Limit each visit to Hawaii to no longer than five days. By Day 7, island fever sets in and your vacation turns into "Paradise Lost. " Aloha. Dan Anzel Los Angeles Fast passport renewal Regarding "Fast … and Safe" [On the Spot, by Catharine Hamm, April 21]

With a nod toward Saturday's Kentucky Derby, these are Times staff writer Kevin Baxter's rankings as the teams come out of the clubhouse turn. (Statistics through Friday's game. Last week's rankings in parentheses): Setting the pace 1; BOSTON Trying to go wire to wire behind Buchholz (6-0, 1.01), Ortiz (.465, 15 RBIs in 11 games) (4) 2; TEXAS Yu Darvish (5-1, MLB-best 58 strikeouts) has Rangers riding high in the saddle (1) 3; ST. LOUIS Cards charges though pack to division lead despite losing two closers (3)

MASHANG VILLAGE, China - The last time they saw their father, Hong Yunke, he was leaving home, hauling his wooden medicine chest, on a frigid December morning in 1967. "I'm going to treat a patient and collect money," Hong told his son, 12, and his daughter, 9. "I'll be back soon. " Hong was what the Chinese call a barefoot doctor, a self-educated healer who treated the sprained ankles of farmers for 20 cents, enough in those days for two pork buns. His wife, unable to endure the poverty, had left him to raise the children on his own. No matter.

It's beginning to look like there's nothing Wendy Greuel wouldn't do to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. Her boatload of big-money backers seems fond of trash-talking gibes so slimy, they're apt to backfire and turn voters off. I hope Greuel takes a lesson from what happened this week, when she castigated opponent Eric Garcetti for accepting support from their former rival. Greuel blanketed black and Latino neighborhoods with mailers blasting Garcetti for accepting the endorsement of Kevin James, a Republican who finished third in the mayoral primary.

By Kari Howard These songs are a personal soundtrack for this week's wonderful Column Ones, but one below is featured on an actual soundtrack, for the Danny Boyle movie “The Beach.” The band is called Underworld, and Boyle has used them for several of his films, not to mention the completely brilliant soundtrack for the London Olympics he produced last summer. (I can die happy: I've heard the Sex Pistols' “God Save the Queen” at the Olympics.) But Boyle's movies have always had some of the best soundtracks.

First came the frenzy for iPhones and iPads. Now there's a scramble for iBonds. Apple Inc. sold $17 billion in bonds Tuesday, a gargantuan deal that ranked as the largest in global corporate history. And even though the securities are paying microscopically low interest, investors tripped over themselves to buy in. In the financial equivalent of a line stretching around the block, investors reportedly submitted more than $50 billion in requests, or more than three times the amount available.

It's time for South Korea to face facts: The Kaesong experiment has failed. The ideologically motivated joint business venture with North Korea known as the Kaesong industrial complex is not economically viable, nor has it achieved any of its political objectives. To protest recent sanctions against it, the North pulled its workers out this month and locked out workers from the South. Seoul tried to engage North Korea to resolve the dispute, coupled with an uncharacteristic deadline and a warning of "grave consequences.

The Sacramento Kings finally appear to be staying put in the state capital, possibly ending an emotional saga that has dragged on for nearly three years. The NBA's relocation committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend that owners reject the application for the Kings to relocate to Seattle, the latest - and by far the strongest - in a long line of cities that almost landed the franchise. The 12 league owners on the committee made the decision over a conference call and forwarded the recommendation to the NBA Board of Governors.

Michael Jackson's death nearly four years ago has been the subject of intense curiosity, endless media speculation and even a dramatic courtroom drama in which the King of Pop's doctor was found guilty of causing his death. But all that may end up being a warm-up act for the legal showdown set to begin Monday . In a wrongful death lawsuit, the singer's mother and three children accuse concert promoter Anschutz Entertainment Group of threatening to end Jackson's career if he failed to deliver on a series of comeback concerts in London and hiring the doctor who was later convicted of giving the singer a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol.